A Christmas Quickie...

...Update! C'mon people...

Okay, pictures WILL come but just a quick run down of my holiday festivities:

-Shopping with mom (I made out like a bandit this year with clothes--you da best mom!)
-Sundaes at the Chambers house (a holiday favorite tradition of 9ish years now)
-Lunch with my "big brother", his WIFE (ah! crazy! love her btdubs), and Bonster Monster
-Candle Light service at church (the advent candles caught on fire during the "O Holy Night" solo)
-Presents with parents, Kirby, Daniel, and Felicity (F loved unwrapping presents!)
-Lots of cooking/baking; including but not limited to: monkey bread, homemade pizza, Baby Cake cake pops, lasagna, and more
-And finally, a 3 day road trip to Mississippi to see my aunts, uncles, one of my cousins, and my just turned 90 year old grandmother, Mimi

Whew! And now I'm in Marietta for the night, packing up, going back to Chattanooga to turn back around and go to Greenville for NYE! Don't worry though, I've already started working on my annual countdown of my favorite moments of this past year!

Hope y'all have a wonderful, blessed, restful, and family and friend filled Christmas!

Viva Las Vegas; The Final Chapter

Okay, last Vegas post--I promise! Mary, Bonnie, and Dan all had to work on Wednesday so they didn't have much of a Tuesday in Vegas once they got up, packed, and headed to the airport. But Alexa and I had book 11 pm flights for that night so we had practically a whole day left!

Once we finally finished packing, getting ready, and checking our bags it was time for food! Finding a decently priced meal is just as difficult as finding our way around (not to mention finding our way out of the MGM!). Alexa and I wandered around New York, New York and settled on a New York style deli. It was really yummy and you could hear the roller coaster overhead which was pretty crazy to think that it was that close! After we played the penny slots for a bit we decided it was time to ride the roller coaster. That's right, the roller coaster that is on top of a building. It wasn't nearly as high up as I envisioned, but still fun and quite a rush! And chilly...

We moved down the strip to visit a few more casinos which turned out to be some of our favorites-The Cosmopolitan and Paris. First was the Cosmo, which is the newest of the casinos on the strip. We wandered through the way-out-of-our-price-range shops and decided to try out the slot machines there--and I'm glad we did because I won $10!

The Cosmopolitan was beautifully decorated and definitely the swankiest. 

Next, we were on to Paris! I definitely appreciated sticking with a theme--it was quaint and cozy. I thought it was crazy that the Eiffel Tower came inside of the casino!

 Tired from lots of walking, we stopped for a pretzel snack and we ready for even more walking. We settled on having dinner at an Irish pub in New York, New York--we figured 2 red heads couldn't go wrong with Irish food for dinner! Our time to Vegas had come to an end, so we collected our bags and headed for the airport. Oh yeah, I almost forgot...before we went back to the hotel, Alexa won $93 off of the penny slots!! Ridiculous...I had been excited about my $10 (measly in comparison) and she showed me up!

The flight was less chatty and more bumpy than it was en route to Sin City, but I was glad to be on my way home! Vegas was great for a long weekend trip, but definitely not somewhere that I plan on returning to on a yearly basis--not that I could afford such a trip again!

My favorite part of the trip? Spending time with FB plus Dan and getting to travel with friends instead of family. (Not that I don't LOVE family vacays, just a different pace)

Viva Las Vegas! Part 2

So after a long Sunday with hours of traveling, a forced adjustment to a 3 hour time different, a day full of walking and a late night, we let ourselves sleep in a little bit on Monday. By the time we rolled out of bed and threw on some clothes, it was time for brunch! We decided to try one of Vegas' well known, over the top buffets and I am SO glad we went! Seriously, my favorite meal of the trip. Food anywhere in Vegas is not cheap by any means (averaging $20 a meal) so we usually filled up and made it on just 2 meals a day. Since it was brunch, we had breakfast and lunch options and definitely got the most bang for our buck--and our waiter was AWESOME! I think he brought me at least 6 refills of diet coke without a complain or a grumble.

On our way back up to the room to freshen up for the day, we stopped to take pictures at the MGM's Lions Den. That's right, we had lions in our hotel! They had a habitat right next to the casino and were always attended by at least 2 men.

As we were playing paparazzi to the lions, we found this little Vegas gem. He was on mine and Alexa's flight home too...wearing this same exact get up. Talk about intenese stylin'. 

That afternoon was spent with more sightseeing, but this time with a little bit more direction. Our first stop was the Venetian. This was one of my favorite hotel/casinos because they really stuck to the theme! As soon as we walked in, there were Christmas carolers and we were handed a cup of hot apple cider. It was easy to forget it was Christmas out in the neon desert, but I like that the Venetian had a touch of the holiday spirit!

We decided to be the ultimate tourist and went on the gondola ride! They sing to you as you're riding and we even had our own personal photographer (Dan) since they couldn't fit more than 4 passengers in the boats at a time. Well worth the money just to say that we did it.

After walking through some of the stores, we took a taxi to see the Luxor and Excalibur...neither were all that exciting. Although, I do wish that we had known the Luxor has one of the world's only diagonal elevator so we could have riden it! There's always next time, right? We stopped to take some pictures in front of MGM (Fun fact: the MGM is colored green, not after money, but after one of their highest producing movies; The Wizard of Oz's Emerald City. Fun fact #2: MGM is in the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest all brass statue, the lion!)

That night, we booked a champagne tour through Vegas on a party bus. Our bus driver had a family emergency so he was in a bit of a funk and the other passengers outside of our group were a bit on the awkward side, but the back of the bus didn't let that stop us from having fun! We did find out a few fun facts (that I've mentioned throughout the 2 blog posts) and stopped on Freemont Street. The "strip" is actually Paradise, Nevada and just a few miles over is the original Las Vegas. It's a smaller strip of hotels and casinos with the most recent one having been built in the 60s. (I think...) The big attraction is the covered street that does a light show that coordinates to music once every hour!

We of course had to stop when Santa was monitoring the tree...he said a few creepy things, but then Dan showed up and that stopped.

Okay, a little out of order, but before we were on Freemont Street, we also stopped at the "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign which was cool to have the photo opp!

And we stopped by the show "Pawn Stars" pawn shop, but it was closed for filming...but at least here's the sign to prove that we were there!

Okay, now back to Freemont. Inside the Golden Nugget, the last of the casinos on Freemont Street to be built, was the world's largest golden nugget (fitting) and even an ATM machine for gold. Just reiterating that Vegas is not the real world. 

Our last stop of the night was to see the fountains at the Bellagio, but since all of us had seen them before, we got to spend some extra time touring the chocolate fountain and Christmas display that had thousands of flowers! Oh, and the glass artist who I forgot his name...but Jessica Schwartz and I saw his display in Nashville over a year ago--so it was neat to see what he had done in Vegas outside of a museum setting.

And of course we had to squeeze some time in for the slots...no luck on Monday night, but me and Alexa got lucky come Tuesday...more on that next post! (Yes, I tricked you. I said there would be 2 posts, but I decided 3 shorter posts instead of 2 with one short and one really long post would be better!)

Okay, I admit it. This picture was from earlier in the day when we first say down at the slots, but we did gamble a bit more Monday night and this was the best I could do to prove it!

Viva Las Vegas! Part 1

This is part one of a 2 part post because otherwise this would be the longest, most overdetailed post ever...so instead I will turn it into 2 shorter, over detailed blog posts.

Vegas, Day 1:

First Picture in Vegas!

I woke up around 5 am to get ready, meet up with Alexa and get to our 8:30 flight. Thankfully it was a direct flight so we made it to Vegas at 10 am their time (The 3 hour time difference really made for a chaotic internal clock for our short trip!) On the plane ride over, I made friends with a 60-something year old man, Jimmy Johnson, who makes an annual trip to Vegas with his millionaire friend (no joke). They play black jack the whole time and he said he has always made enough money to pay off his trip and then buy some designer stuff for his wife and daughter. We seriously talked the whole 4 hour-long flight and the rest of our trip, I would constantly refer to conversations Jimmy and I had had. It made the flight go by much faster and he really gave me good pointers of what to see or what wasn't worth the money.

Conveniently, the airport is 10 minute taxi ride to the strip so we were at our hotel in no time! After a few issues and Mary's persistance, we got checked into our rooms. We were on the 27th floor so we had a great view! Mary and Dan had a view of the airport and the girls room faced New York, New York. Our room had an ad for David Copperfield over the window so the pictures came out dark, but I did get some pictures of the mountains and airport looking out of M & D's room.

After we got freshened up, we walked up and down the strip to take in all the sights. The strip is a 5 mile stretch so a pointer for all of those newcomers to Vegas--wear comfortable shoes!! We may or may not have learned that the hard way later that evening...Anyway, the weather was perfect and sunny so we enjoyed the afternoon outside. Everything in Vegas is beyond over the top and so so far from reality. There are people dressed up as Elmo, Transformers, and Woody and Buzz from Toy Story. Our favorite though was the midget dressed up as Elvis! Only in Vegas...

There are designer stores on almost every corner and rules just don't even seem to exist there. Although not having an open container law was convenient, I could not get over the fact that prostitution is legal there. It was heartbreaking to see homeless people trying to earn a living by handing out brochures and business cards for local prostitutes...On to a happier note, here are some pictures from Sunday afternoon!

New York! New York!

In front of Monte Carlo 

The lobby of MGM--They changed to just silver and gold on Monday!

We headed back to the hotel to get ready for the evening. We had tickets to see Vegas! The Show, which was a montage of Vegas through the years--Sonny and Cher, Elton John, Elvis...etc. It was so  good! But I'm jumping ahead, before we did that--we went to walk around Planet Hollywood and stopped to get drinks. Back to the convenience of no open container laws, we went to a happy hour and got a drink there and a drink to go!

After the show, we decided to see some of the Vegas night life. We made it to the Bellagio in time to see the famous fountains and stopped by Paris to see the Eiffel Tower all lit up! I love that we got to see so many of the Vegas classics!

 After stopping by a club in the Bellagio, (literally stopping by because you have to pay at least $700 to sit at a booth!!!! Insane.) we called it a night. Mary and Dan went down to play Black Jack and some slots and Dan spent about $20 but won $38 so that was definitely a win! I was sound asleep while all of that was going on. Vegas is not for the faint of heart or those in need of sleep. More on Day 2 later!